Devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops and others have displays, screens or other optical interfaces through which a user interacts with the device. In these devices, it can be desired to adjust the brightness of the display in relation to ambient light to make the display easier to view by the human eye, reduce energy consumption, and achieve other benefits. Conventionally, devices comprise a photoreceiver and an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) to sense ambient light and adjust (and readjust) the display brightness. A photoreceiver with a spectral sensitivity similar to that of the human eye can be advantageous because it responds to light in a way similar to that of the human eye.
Conventional approaches comprise either a separate photoreceiver and ASIC, or a photoreceiver integrated with the ASIC. While the latter can be advantageous because it is smaller in scale overall, proportionally photoreceivers generally remain larger because their minimum size is dependent on signal amplification from the ASIC. This means that size reduction of the ASIC itself are not realized for the device overall because the photoreceiver cannot be made smaller on the same scale. Another disadvantage of conventional integrated approaches is that they can require expensive filters and other components in order to compensate for infrared radiation properties of silicon.